Tiny hedgehog making it big on social media

When Anna Mathias started an Instagram account for her 2-month-old hedgehog in April, her goal was to have 1,000 followers within a month or she would delete the account. She had 1,000 followers in four days.

By late September, Lionel, better known as @LionelTheHog, had more than 27,800 Instagram followers. Not bad for a 1-pound hedgehog with grumpy tendencies.

Mathias loved hedgehogs but had never thought about getting one for herself. Yet when she heard Lionel’s owner was giving him up, she jumped at the chance to have a hedgehog of her own.

As active Instagram user, Mathias started snapping photos of Lionel (named for Lionel Richie) for her own account.

“I’d take five or six pictures in a day, and they were really cute, and I wanted to share them,” she said.